NOVA's Sam Stack ends up at the bottom of the stack in a scramble for the ball in the fourth quarter of the April 11 lacrosse game against Howard Community College. Photo by: Arch Scurlock

By Arch Scurlock
Sports Columnist

The men’s lacrosse team is having a tough season so far under first year coach Anthony LePore, winning only one of eight contests.

In their latest game, the Northern Virginia Community College lacrosse team traveled to Columbia, Md., to play the Howard County Community College Dragons on April 11 in a match that looked like NOVA could have a chance of winning.

The afternoon was alternately sunny, windy, cold, rainy and even had a few minutes of sleet. And NOVA, after falling behind early in the first period 2-0, stormed back with goals by Miles Herbst, Garrett Nealon and Ricky Sinclair to lead at the end of the first quarter, 3-2, despite being outshot 11-6.

The second period saw Howard dominate as they limited NOVA to just a few shots while making four goals themselves to lead 6-3 at halftime.

NOVA's Garrett Nealon holds the ball away from the Howard Community College defender in the first quarter of the April 11 lacrosse game. Photo by Arch Scurlock

In the third period, NOVA kept up with Howard as each team scored three, though NOVA was again outshot.

Aaron Paul, David Rosenberger and Ryan Ningard scored for NOVA. Trailing 9-6 entering the final period, NOVA was plagued by fouling, and Howard took advantage by scoring six unanswered points, many when a player up, turning the match into a rout and winning 15-6.

With the loss, NOVA dropped to 1-7 for the year while Howard improved to 3-5.

In NOVA’s first game of the year, they traveled to Essex, Md., to play the nationally ranked Community College of Baltimore County-Essex on Feb. 25. NOVA lost 19-4. Two weeks later on March 10, NOVA went to Bel Air, Md., and lost to the ASA College (N.Y.) Avengers 15-9.

The next day NOVA went to Dover, Del., and lost a close match 11-9 to the Delaware Tech & Community College Hawks.
NOVA finally played its first home match on March 15 at George Mason University and came away with its first win of the year, beating the winless County College of Morris (N.J.) Titans 10-6.

NOVA's Ryan Ningard fires a shot at the goal in the fourth quarter of the April lacrosse game with Howard Community College. Photo by Arch Scurlock

Next on the schedule was a trip to Catonsville, Md., to play the Community College of Baltimore County-Catonsville Cardinals. NOVA went away with a 17-6 loss.

NOVA’s second home match was on March 31, again at GMU against Harford (Md.) Community College. Both teams got lots of extra practice as no referees showed up for the match. Finally, after about an hour, some referees were cajoled into arriving to judge a 10-5 loss by NOVA.

For its next match, NOVA traveled to Owings Mill, Md., on April 6 and perhaps wished that the referees had not shown up to that one since the team got pummeled 17-1 by the unbeaten Stevenson (Md.) University JV, dropping its record to 1-6.

NOVA plays its final three games in April, two of which will be on home fields at West Potomac High School and then Westfield High School. It appears that NOVA will have a decent chance for victories in at least two of the matches.

Jeff Dukat

By: Arch Scurlock
Sport Columnist

The college-wide student activities department welcomed Jeff Dukat in January as its Intramural and Recreation Specialist. He will work to improve intramural and recreational opportunities for Northern Virginia Community College students. Previously, each campus administered its own intramural sports activities with varying success.

Dukat stated that his intramural planning and implementation is a work “in process.” The Alexandria campus recently hosted a five-person soccer team competition with 12 teams competing. A three-on-three team basketball competition will soon take place at Annandale campus.

Dukat is a native of Buffalo, N.Y. He has a bachelor’s degree in physical education and a master’s degree in recreation and leisure management at the State University of New York College at Brockport. He worked first at Seton Hall University as an administrator in the athletic department and then was with the Boys Club of Buffalo as an assistant site director.

A NOVA player goes in for a layup in 77-60 win versus Germanna CC on February 23 at Annandale. Photo by Kama Storie

By Arch Scurlock/Sports Columnist

Whereas the Northern Virginia Community College women’s team rolled to lopsided wins in the Virginia Community College System tournament, the men’s team was engaged in two frenetic contests. It was a battle between the top two men’s teams in the VCCS final on March 4 in Chesapeake, both with 10-1 VCCS records during the regular season. Southside Virginia Community College of Alberta and NOVA had split two games previously, but in this title game Southside overcame an 80-79 NOVA lead with 51 seconds to go and won the championship 85-83.

In the first game of the last three regular season games leading up to the tournament, NOVA bested the Germanna Community College team at Annandale on Feb. 23, winning 77-60. NOVA opened up a 41-20 halftime lead and led by as many as 30 in the second half, then coasted to the win. Chris Jones led NOVA in scoring with 19, followed by Jason Holland with 15 and Steve Pierre with 14. NOVA demonstrated their advantage in offensive strength close to the basket by only needing to make 2-point baskets, and Germanna really had only one player who could combat this strength. Germanna had problems penetrating the NOVA inside presence, and so it turned to 3-point baskets, making 10 of them.

NOVA next played another VCCS foe, Thomas Nelson Community College, at Flint Hill High School in Oakton and came away with an 83-78 win on Feb. 25.

The next day, NOVA traveled to Lawrenceville to take on Southside. NOVA had taken the first game between the two in Annandale by 84-77, and that loss was still the only loss Southside had suffered in the VCCS.

Chris Jones goes for fast-break basket with NOVA's Duncan Jones (#23) trailing in 77-60 win over Germanna CC on February 23 at Annandale. Photo by Kama Storie

In contrast with that first game, Southside exhibited a much stronger defense close to the basket, partly due to the addition of a player who was not present in the previous game.

Southside led most of the first half and had a lead of as much as 10 with 3.5 minutes to go, but NOVA ended the half only down by 4, 48-44. With their close-in offensive game yielding few baskets, NOVA relied on 3-pointers in the half, making seven of them.

In the second half, NOVA tried attacking the basket more with limited success. Chris Jones’ drives to the basket led to his being stripped several times with the loss of the ball to Southside, and he made none of the layups he was able to put up. He only made one 2-point basket in the second half after making three 3-pointers in the first half. Close-in baskets by the other players were still hard to come by, though they received a number of foul shots, and only strong shooting by Simon Kilday kept NOVA in the game, as he scored 17 points in the second half, mostly on intermediate shots. NOVA had no 3-pointers in the second half.

Southside went out to leads as much as 19 points in the second half over the frustrated NOVA team, but NOVA was able to cut the lead to 6 momentarily at 78-72 with 5.5 minutes to go and again at 89-83 with about 30 seconds left, but that was as close as they could come as they lost 92-83.

Southside’s D’Antre Person was a big problem for NOVA. In the first half he had 19 points and in the second half 14, even though he only made 6 of 11 free throws. When he

NOVA's Steve Pierre soars in putting up shot with NOVA's Duncan Jones (#23) trailing and NOVA's Simon Kilday (#31) to the right in 77-60 win over Germanna CC on February 23 at Annandale. Photo by Kama Storie

was double-teamed on his drives to the basket in the second half, he would often find a teammate alone near the basket with a pass that ended in an easy Southside layup.

A drained and tired Coach Mike Fitzmaurice could only exclaim after the game, “There goes our winning streak.” The loss did end an almost two year undefeated stretch for NOVA in VCCS games. Southside had tied NOVA for the #1 seed position in the upcoming VCCS tournament.

In the VCCS semi-final game on March 3, NOVA played Tidewater Community College of Chesapeake. It turned out that the game followed the same pattern as their previous two games, to Tidewater’s dismay. NOVA led Tidewater in each of the second halves, but Tidewater rallied to near NOVA late in the period on a barrage of 3-pointers, before NOVA pulled out the victory.

This game saw NOVA take a 42-32 halftime lead. In the second half, NOVA kept its lead for most of the half and led by 9 at 100-91 with 1:40 to go. That was Tidewater’s cue for action. Tidewater’s Reginald Smith, who had been throwing up errant 3-pointers the whole game, finally made one at 1:28 to cut the NOVA lead to 100-94. After a NOVA foul shot, he hit another one at 1:10 to cut the lead to 101-97. They were his only two baskets of the game. NOVA, which was missing lots of foul shots in the last 1.5 minutes of the game, finally had Pierre and then Chris Jones make a foul shot to raise its lead to 103-97 with 34.7 seconds to go.

Tidewater made a 2-pointer and after NOVA’s Holland missed two more free throws, making it four in a row, Tidewater’s Malcolm Coleman threw in a miracle 3-pointer to close it to 103-102 at the 10 second mark, his only basket of the game. After a NOVA free throw at 8.1 seconds, Tidewater inbounded and found a lone Tidewater player under the basket with a long pass. His hurried, close shot bounced off the backboard and past the basket, a ‘gimme’ basket that would have tied the score.

NOVA's Duncan Jones goes up for a fast-break dunk with NOVA's Chris Jones (#5) trailing in 77-60 victory over Germanna CC on February 23 at Annandale. Photo by Kama Storie

The player went down in the ensuing melee, and, probably from exasperation from the missed shot, a technical foul was called on Southside at 1.7 seconds. NOVA’s Holland finally made the two free throws from the technical to make it 106-102 and a hurried missed Tidewater shot was followed by another NOVA free throw as NOVA escaped to the championship game with a 107-102 win.

NOVA had made only 7 of 17 foul shots in the last 1:23 to help keep Tidewater in the game. Duncan Jones led NOVA with 25 points, followed by Chris Jones’ 20. The two teams had scored 135 points between them in the second half, a monumental effort.

Coming into the tournament, NOVA had two goals: to better defend Southside guard Person, and to penetrate the strong inner Southside defense. NOVA did better in both areas, but were still not quite able to win.

NOVA took an early 10-6 lead after 5 minutes, but then Southside seemed to make every long distance shot as they took a 27-16 lead with just under nine minutes to go. Southside still led by 11 at 37-26 with 2.5 minutes to go, but NOVA rallied to score 11 straight points. Kilday scored 6 and Pierre made a 2-point basket with 3.0 seconds to go to tie the game 37-37 at the half.

There was one glaring statistic at halftime: high-scoring Duncan Jones had zero points. At the half he was seen talking to someone next to the court who seemed to be giving him some pointers for the second half.

NOVA was glad to start the second half finally even, but it did not last long, as they quickly fell behind by 15 points after only seven minutes of the second half at 56-41. No timeout pep talk was necessary, however, as NOVA went on a 23-8 tear to tie the score at 64-64 with 8 minutes to go. Kilday led a further 10-3 NOVA surge with 7 points as NOVA took a 7-point lead with five minutes left at 74-67.

NOVA could not rest, however, as three minutes later Southside had tied the score at 78-78 with 2:09 left. A basket by Chris Jones gave NOVA the lead at 80-79 with 51 seconds remaining. Southside’s Javon Lockett then broke free momentarily under the basket on their possession, took the quick pass, made a layup at 39.1 seconds, and was fouled. He made the foul shot to give Southside the lead at 82-80.

NOVA worked the ball looking for a good shot, and Chris Jones was fouled with 23.3 seconds to go. It looked like NOVA would have a possible way to tie the score, but crucially it turned out that it was only Southside’s sixth foul of the half, so there were no foul shots awarded. NOVA inbounded the ball. Two Southside defenders batted out a subsequent bounce pass into Pierre near the basket, and Southside recovered the ball.

They quickly took the ball down the court and Person made a layup with 10 seconds to go for an 84-80 Southside lead. NOVA quickly took the ball up court and Duncan Jones drilled a desperation 3-pointer to cut the lead to 84-83 with 4 seconds to go.

NOVA had to foul quickly and did so at 2.4 seconds, Southside making one of two free throws for an 85-83 lead. After a timeout, NOVA was unable to inbound the pass and so took a second timeout. This time a long pass to Duncan Jones connected, but his long 3-pointer went astray as the buzzer sounded giving Southside the hard-fought title, their third in four years, and a final 17-5 record.

NOVA was able to defense Person better, especially during the first half as starter Gordon Jones and Nate Queen and Okezie Erondu came off the bench to limit him to 5 points. However, despite close guarding again in the second half, Person broke loose for 18 points in the second half, including three 3-pointers. He especially rose to the occasion in the final 4 minutes, scoring 10 points, including the 3 pointer that tied the score at 78-78. With his 26 points in the Southside semifinal game, Person was named Tournament MVP.

Lockett was an unexpected force for Southside, scoring 19, mostly close to the basket. He had only scored 2 points in the previous game between the two teams.

For NOVA, Pierre scored a game-high 26 points, including seven of eight free throws, while Kilday had 22, including four 3-pointers. Coincidentally, they were NOVA’s representatives on the all tournament team. Duncan Jones obviously got some good halftime advice, as he scored 11 points in the second half, the only other NOVA player in double figures.

After the game, Coach Fitzmaurice related, “They played hard. The other team was just better today…We had a 6-point lead the last several minutes. The guy came back with some unbelievable long 3-point shots that brought them back in the game.”

Thus NOVA’s hopes for a second straight championship had ended. This year was NOVA’s last chance for a VCCS championship, since next year it will compete in an NJCAA tournament. NOVA’s record in the VCCS ended at 11-2 and 15-12 overall. This year’s team had come close to duplicating last year’s superb achievement of winning the VCCS tournament.

NOVA's Kasee Hilliard lays up a short shot under the basket on her way to 14 points despite Southside Virginia Community College guarding in the VCCS finals in Chesapeake on March 4. Photo by Arch Scurlock

By: Arch Scurlock
Sports Columnist

The Northern Virginia Community College women’s basketball team captured their first Virginia Community College System championship at the tournament in Chesapeake over the weekend of March 3.

NOVA romped to a 92-61 win over Thomas Nelson Community College in the semifinal on Saturday and to an 81-51 victory over Southside Virginia Community College in the championship game on Sunday afternoon.

Besides receiving the championship banner and a giant plaque, NOVA’s Carlie Zirkle won the MVP tournament award, and she, Yvette Gilliom and Halley Cummins were selected for the all-tournament team.

For the season, NOVA finished at 8-0 in VCCS games and 15-9 overall. This year was the last opportunity for NOVA to win this tournament since next year it will compete in an NJCAA tournament.

The happy Coach Wayne Vincent, who is in his third year, expressed his appreciation after the game for the season-long efforts of the players and coaches. He said that the players had really been the reason for NOVA’s success, and he applauded the way those players had come together and played so well as a team, and the way they had progressed to playing their best basketball of the season. Vincent was very proud of them and happy for them.

NOVA never had a full squad of players, seven at the most. It often had to play with only one substitute and fortunately gained a competent sub after losing a player after the first semester. The team showed marked improvement over the season under Coach Vincent and gained the endurance to play well for the entire game, though players saw a lot of court time. However, the team had to cancel three games in early February due to not being able to field a full team because of injury and sickness.

First substitute Hoda Nasseri showed remarkable improvement in becoming a strong sixth player and several players progressed well over the season. Paris Cantrell was the lone holdover from last year’s team.

After the three canceled games in early February, NOVA came back a bit rusty but still easily defeated Lord Fairfax Community College on Feb. 18 in Front Royal by 64-46. The next game on Feb. 22 against a superior (22-4) Hagerstown Community College team saw them get trampled 63-33, but they recovered in time for their Feb. 25 home game at Flint Hill High School in Oakton to themselves trample Thomas Nelson Community College, 73-27.

Traveling to Lawrenceville on Feb. 26, NOVA beat Southside 85-67, which at that time had also been undefeated in the VCCS but lost its last regular season game on Feb. 28 to a strong (20-8) Frederick Community College team in Frederick, Md., 78-70.

In the VCCS semifinal game against Thomas Nelson, NOVA sprinted out to a 43-21 first half lead on the way to its 92-61 win. NOVA had five players in double figures, with Zirkle leading with 27 and Cummins next with 22.

There was some suspense before the championship game on the question of whether NOVA could duplicate its win of the previous Sunday over Southside. NOVA led by only 33-25 at the half but poured it on in the second half, winning 81-51.

NOVA again had five players in double figures, led again by Zirkle with 17. Cummins, who had been dormant in the first half, woke up in the second half and scored all 15 of her points. Kasee Hilliard added 14, Nasseri added 13, and Gilliom contributed 11.

Though NOVA women’s teams have suffered frustrations in the tournament the last several years, winning the championship was easy this year. Three years ago the team lost 83-81 in the semi-finals to the eventual champion. Two years ago it lost 53-51 in the finals. And last year it lost in the finals. This year, NOVA won all the games it played in the regular season over VCCS teams by an average of 25 points, with the lowest margin of victory at 15 points.

Sports Columnist

The Northern Virginia Community College men’s basketball team continued its strong recent performances, winning eight of its last 10 games, including all seven of its Virginia Community College System games. The VCCS wins included beating its top two VCCS competitors a total of three times.

The second of those VCCS games against the top two competitors was at the Annandale campus on Feb. 4 against archrival Southside Virginia Community College. Both teams came in with unblemished VCCS records: NOVA at 5-0 and Southside at 4-0.

In the first half, NOVA streaked out to a 6-0 lead, but Southside rallied to take a 19-13 lead. NOVA then scored 11 in a row to take a 5-point lead and stretched it to as many as 13 points at 38-25 with about four minutes to play. Southside then again rallied, but NOVA held a 40-33 halftime lead.

Simon Kilday led NOVA in the first half with 14, followed by Duncan Jones with 12.

The second half saw a resurgent Southside waste no time in taking the lead as it scored 8 straight points to go up 41-40 before NOVA scored its first point. The score remained close until the 10-minute mark, when Southside extended its lead from 60-57 to 66-59 over two minutes.

NOVA took up the challenge and, behind Kilday’s 4 points and Jones’ 4 points, came back to take the lead at 71-70 with under five minutes to play. Southside regained the lead momentarily at 74-73 with less than three minutes to play. Then NOVA scored 10 of the game’s next 11 points to go up 83-75 with 23.7 seconds left on the way to an 84-77 win.

Duncan Jones led NOVA scoring with 27 points, followed by Kilday’s 22 and Chris Jones’ 12. With the win, NOVA went to 6-0 in the VCCS and 9-9 overall.

Overall, Coach Mike Fitzmaurice was happy with the game.

“That was a big win for us because we were undefeated in conference, as was Southside,” he said. “We played well for most of the game, and then we had stretches where we played very poorly, defensively, [didn’t] take care of the basketball. Fortunately, that was only about… 5 percent of the game. We don’t really have the depth or the size that we normally have, so we have to play better basketball… I’d say we got an A, A-, B+.  Overall we’re really happy to win… [Southside will] probably be our most formidable competitor at the season-end [tournament].”

NOVA played at home on Feb. 11 against its other chief VCCS competitor, Tidewater Community College. Tidewater came in with an 8-1 VCCS record — the only loss being to NOVA — and a 14-7 overall record. NOVA easily broke Tidewater’s early press, getting behind it for easy baskets, and Tidewater was flat in the first half. NOVA went out to as much as a 17-point lead, and led 44-30 at halftime. Duncan Jones led the charge with 14 points, and Steve Pierre had 11.

Toward the middle of the second half, Tidewater began cutting into the NOVA lead and, with 10.5 minutes to go, had cut the lead to 57-53.

In a quick reversal of momentum and a 15-4 run, with Kilday making 9 of those, NOVA extended its lead to 72-57 with just under five minutes to play. It looked like the game was over.

Then the late-game fun began. NOVA held what seemed like a comfortable 10-point lead at 76-66 with 1:46 to go. Then Tidewater’s Eric Dubose netted two 3-pointers sandwiched around a NOVA 2-point basket to cut the lead to 78-72 with about a minute to go. Two foul shots by  Kilday upped the lead back to 80-72 at the 46.9 second mark, but Tidewater closed it to 80-74 at the 31.9 second mark with a 2-point basket. A foul on Duncan Jones gave Tidewater the ball back, and they scored at the 24-second mark to close to 80-76.

Chris Jones was then quickly fouled and he made one of two shots to make it 81-76 with 21.5 seconds left. Another Tidewater 2-pointer at 16 seconds to go made it a 3-point game, 81-78.

At 9.2 seconds, Pierre was fouled and made one of two to make it 82-78. Tidewater rushed down and threw up another good 3-pointer to make it 82-81 with 2.2 seconds remaining.

Tidewater quickly fouled Duncan Jones at 1.3 seconds, but he made both foul shots, and Tidewater was not able to retaliate as NOVA barely escaped with an 84-81 win, despite being outscored 51-40 in the second half.

NOVA thus remained undefeated and at the top of the VCCS standings with a 7-0 record, 10-10 overall.

NOVA was led in the game by Kilday’s 23 points, including six of six free throws, and Duncan Jones’ 22 points, including 8 of 9 from the free-throw line.

Assistant Coach Sean Fitzmaurice remarked after the game, “We got a big lead, then we let them back in the game. If we play the right way, make the right passes, we’ll be very successful.”

In regards to losing the big lead late in the second half, he said, “We did the same thing in the first half–had a double-digit lead, then let them back in. We seem to play in spurts.” Compared to the game they played against Tidewater there earlier in the year, Fitzmaurice said, “We were in the lead [for the first game] the whole way. We had a double-digit lead the first half. At the end of the second half, they started hitting threes and tied it up. We wound up winning by five — a carbon copy of this game.”

On Jan. 22 in Hampton, NOVA defeated Thomas Nelson Community College 82-64.

On the 26th, NOVA traveled to Largo, Md., and was beaten by Prince George’s Community College 76-63.

Another road game on Jan. 28 saw NOVA defeat VCCS rival Richard Bland College 88-76.

After the Southside game at Annandale, NOVA entertained a powerful Hagerstown Community College team on Feb. 9 at Annandale, which came in with a 21-4 record. NOVA kept up with Hagerstown the first 11 minutes of the game, but fell behind 59-47 at the half.  NOVA and Hagerstown played fairly evenly in the second half, but NOVA could never cut its deficit by much. It wound up losing 107-91, similar to its loss to Hagerstown in the first game of the year.

Despite the loss, Guard Yusuf Ansray came off the bench in that game for NOVA in the first half and had a super game. He hit his first 3-pointers in that half to keep NOVA in the game and wound up with 22 points in leading NOVA in scoring.

Theo Spaulding added 20 for NOVA and Pierre 17.

After the Tidewater game, NOVA journeyed to Maryland on Feb. 15 to take on Montgomery College-Takoma Park. NOVA played an impressive game, shooting well and playing a solid defense. Leading 19-18 in the first half, NOVA went out to as much as a 13-point lead and led 46-39 at the half. NOVA had strong 3-point shooting, making eight in the first half, led by Pierre’s three.

In the second half, Montgomery was not able to make a big dent in the NOVA lead, and the Montgomery crowd even cheered NOVA for some nifty quick passing that led to some easy baskets. Pierre’s terrific game of 35 points easily paced NOVA to the 91-75 win. It included five 3-point baskets and 10 2-point baskets. Duncan Jones added 20, and NOVA had five players in double figures.

In the last game of this group, NOVA traveled to Front Royal on Feb. 18 to meet VCCS rival Lord Fairfax Community College. NOVA could not duplicate its 124 points scored against Lord Fairfax at a previous game in Annandale but still routed them 90-49. This visit also included the re-emergence of the women’s team, after several postponed games due to a lack of able players, who easily beat the Lord Fairfax women.

With the win against Lord Fairfax, NOVA’s record rose to 8-0 in the VCCS, 12-10 overall.

NOVA plays three more regular season games, all against VCCS foes, including a Feb. 26 trip to Southside for the final game, before going to the season-ending VCCS tournament in Chesapeake on March 1.

Tony Lepore

Press Release

The Northern Virginia Community College men’s lacrosse team begins its 2012 season on March 4 with a new coach.
Anthony LePore is the new lacrosse head coach. LePore previously coached lacrosse for 10 years at Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas, where he will continue as a social studies teacher. He has also been involved in numerous other lacrosse activities.

On his appointment, LePore said, “I am very thankful for this opportunity, and I look forward to coaching these student-athletes at the collegiate level. My time coaching at Stonewall was special… However, I am very excited about this next challenge.”

While at Stonewall, LePore’s lacrosse teams won two district championships and earned six regional playoff berths. He coached the school’s first All-Americans and numerous players who went on to play at the NCAA level. The News and Messenger newspaper named LePore its boy’s lacrosse all-area Coach of the Year for 2011.

“We are thrilled to attract a candidate with the credentials of Coach LePore,” said Brian Anweiler, NOVA’s college-wide student activities coordinator. “He is a talented coach with a proven ability to place students at the four-year college level.”

LePore played collegiate lacrosse at The Citadel from 1996 to 1999 and then at State University of New York at Geneseo from 1999 to 2000 while working on a graduate degree in secondary education.

He is originally from Rochester, New York and currently resides in Manassas.

LePore replaces Matt Blarney, NOVA’s first coach who, although having helped start the program, resigned in early August to join Sonoma State University in California as an assistant lacrosse coach.

NOVA will play eight matches this spring, beginning March 4 and ending on April 26. Its first three matches will all be on the road, while the final eight will be played at home locations.

There will be home-and-home matches with the Community College of Baltimore County-Catonsville and Delaware Technical & Community College-Terry. Six of the matches will be against Maryland community college teams.

By Arch Scurlock
Sports Columnist

The Northern Virginia Community College women’s basketball team played two consecutive especially exciting and close games on Dec. 16 and Dec. 20 at the Annandale campus. Both scores were remarkably similar, with NOVA winning the first but losing the second.

In the first game, NOVA (4-4) played the Community College of Baltimore County-Dundalk (6-3) on the evening of Dec. 16. NOVA had earlier narrowly lost to Dundalk on Nov. 4, 64-61. For this game, NOVA had the luxury of seven players in uniform.

A strong defensive effort fueled a strong first half NOVA effort. With the score tied at 13 with seven minutes to go, NOVA went on a tear, outscoring Dundalk 16-6 to take a 29-19 halftime lead. Halley Cummins led the tear by scoring the last 7 NOVA points.

NOVA widened its lead to 43-29 with 13 minutes to go in the second half, but Dundalk began to slowly rally. NOVA’s lead dwindled to 5 but grew to 10 over the next 10 minutes.

Then with the lead at 8, with three minutes to go, Dundalk made 7 straight points to cut the lead to one with a minute to go.

Thus began the final minute of chaos, as each team grasped for the win. NOVA worked for a good shot but missed with 30.7 seconds to go. Then Dundalk could not in-bound the ball in time. NOVA did and Tori Lewis-Woods was fouled at 20.4 seconds, and made one of two foul shots for a 2-point NOVA lead.

Dundalk then engineered a 2-on-1 fast break but missed two layups. NOVA knocked the ball out. NOVA was again able to stop Dundalk from in-bounding the ball in time at 9.7 seconds. NOVA did it again, and Dundalk frantically fouled the wrong player, Carlie Zirkle, at 7.9 seconds. She made two of two foul shots for a 56-52 NOVA lead, and Dundalk missed a final layup.

Zirkle led NOVA with a super game of 21 points, including three 3 pointers. Kasee Hilliard added 10.

NOVA Coach Wayne Vincent commented, “The girls played really well tonight… They played together. We battled them at their place. We were up by 12 once there [but they lost]. Tonight was different. We have to play them one more time at their place. That will be the grudge match. We shot free throws poorly tonight, like 16 of 30. We have to work on that. Also, we’re a small team, and we all have to work on rebounding, rebounding, rebounding… We only have seven girls, but they really work hard.”

The second game was played against the cross-river rivals Prince George’s Community College (7-2). Prince George scored the first 6 points before NOVA’s Zirkle hit a 3 pointer. Prince George stretched its lead to 17-7 with 14 minutes to go. NOVA slowly cut the deficit, with a foul shot and basket by Paris Cantrell tying the score at 23 with four-and-a-half minutes to go. NOVA then took a slight 28-27 halftime lead.

The second half initially saw a very tight contest as Prince George gained a 43-42 lead with about 12 minutes to play, though NOVA was hurt early by Paris Cantrell’s ankle injury, which cut NOVA back to six players. At 43-42, Prince George went on a surge, scoring 9 of the next 10 points to go up 52-43 with nine minutes to go. NOVA’s turn was next, and it rallied to tie the score at 52-all on a Zirkle basket with five-and-a-half minutes left.

Scoring then became dear, and with a minute to go, it was 56-56 to set the stage for the final wild minute.

NOVA had the ball and worked for a good shot, but it turned out to be a long shot with 27 seconds to go that Halley Cummins missed. Prince George rebounded but NOVA double-teamed the ball at 15.9 seconds and recovered it.

The jubilation did not last long as Zirkle was called for a charge with 12.1 seconds remaining. NOVA again pressured the in-bounds pass after a time-out by the other team, but Prince George threw it over the pressure to a lone player near their basket. Fortunately it bounced off her foot but, unfortunately, off a NOVA player. Prince George had the ball again and a timeout, after which their player Danielle Durant drove to the basket from the right side and was fouled at 5.1 seconds.

She made both foul shots for a 58-56 Prince George lead, her tenth and eleventh points of the half. Prince George gained the in-bounds pass but was called for a travel with 1.8 seconds left. NOVA in-bounded and quickly passed to Zirkle in the corner of their court, who caught it facing away from the basket. She quickly turned and heaved the ball to score. Swish! An amazing last-second game winner? Nope, the game-ending buzzer had just sounded before she released the shot.
Still, NOVA had at least won one of the two exciting contests, the first by 56-52 and losing the second 58-56.

Zirkle and Yvette Gilliom both had 14 points in the second game, followed by Lewis-Woods with 11, which turned out to be her final game.

After the game, Coach Vincent remarked, “Some calls went our way, some didn’t. That’s basketball. I felt we should have had more points.”

In the six games in January, NOVA lost Lewis-Woods from the fall semester and gained Briana Cook. The first game on Jan. 14 saw NOVA pound an offensively-challenged Virginia Community College System opponent, Lord Fairfax Community College (0-4), by 56-20. Gilliom led the way with 18, followed by Cantrell with a fine game of 16.

NOVA traveled to Catholic University in D.C. for the next game against their junior varsity and went away with a 76-50 win on Jan 15.

NOVA traveled to CCBC-Dundalk Jan. 18 for their third meeting of the year, the “grudge” match. Dundalk took the deciding game of the set in another close one, 53-48.

The next weekend saw NOVA head to the Tidewater area and win over Tidewater Community College, 56-37, and Thomas Nelson Community College, 67-36.

Then, on Jan. 26, NOVA journeyed to Prince George’s Community College (12-4) for another close loss, 66-61.

Through January, the NOVA women’s basketball team stood at 9-7, after making substantial progress during the season, despite a scarcity of players. To date, NOVA has played three other VCCS women’s teams and has defeated them by a collective score of 179-93. Though return matches will occur, only one more new VCCS team will be encountered, and in past years they have not been strong. Perhaps this is the year that NOVA will finally win their first women’s VCCS title.

NOVA's Steve Pierre appears happy to make a dunk in the January 14 game versus Lord Fairfax CC at Annandale. Photo by: Kama Storie

By Arch Scurlock
Sports Columnist

The Jan. 14 game for the Northern Virginia Community College men’s basketball team turned out to be the game that most players dream of as NOVA scored 124 points — 70 points in the second half — whooping Lord Fairfax Community College 124-84.

The game was played with many fast breaks and layups, often following turnovers and steals.

The beginning of the game turned out to be a good indicator of how it would play out because NOVA found that it could easily penetrate the porous Lord Fairfax defense for close shots. NOVA scored the first 17 points before Lord Fairfax finally made a basket. NOVA upped the lead to as many as 21 points before leading at the half by 17, 54-37.

NOVA’s defense committed relatively few fouls and did a good job, several times stopping Lord Fairfax from getting off a shot in the allotted 35 seconds. Steve Pierre especially played well in the first half, as all four of his baskets were dunks. Chris Lewis scored 13 points in the half, and Chris Jones had 11.

The second half saw the tempo increase even more. NOVA continued to play aggressively, forcing turnovers and gaining more steals. However, this also resulted in more fouls and sometimes easier baskets for Lord Fairfax.

At the other end, though, NOVA was having increased success. Jones and Lewis were again having strong halves, and new player Theo Spaulding came off the bench to score 11, all in the second half.

Some of the Lord Fairfax players also played well during the second half. For instance, J. Crawford had 13 points and Carter had 15, including 11 of 11 foul shots.

NOVA’s efficiency in gaining close shots is shown by their 51 field goals in the game, only two of which were 3-pointers. For the game, nine of NOVA’s 10 players scored, with six in double figures. Jones led with 26, followed by Lewis with 21 and Duncan Jones and Pierre each with 19. With the win, NOVA’s Virginia Community College System record rose to 2-0 and its overall record to 5-8.

NOVA’s coach, Mike Fitzmaurice, had restrained enthusiasm for his team’s performance, saying, “We’re happy that we were able to score so much. We had three new players… We’re unhappy in that our defense was very lax, a lot of fouls, they made maybe close to 30 to 40 foul shots, which is a lot of points… So overall, it was a B-plus, maybe an A-minus game. But certainly on defense, it was less than an adequate game. But overall, we feel good. We won, we’re happy, and the new guys played well.”

Other results from previous games include the following:

Dec. 10 NOVA 94, Harcum College (NY) 98
Dec. 11 NOVA 64, Monroe CC (NY) 97
Dec. 18 NOVA 78 Germanna CC (VCCS) 55
Dec. 21 NOVA 75 Howard CC (MD) 77
Jan. 7 NOVA 83, Cecil Col (MD) 94
Jan. 21 NOVA 83, Tidewater CC 78
Jan. 22 NOVA 82, Thomas Nelson CC 64
Jan. 26 NOVA 63, Prince George’s CC 76
Jan. 28 NOVA 88, Richard Bland College 76

NOVA is 5-0 in the VCCS through January and appears to be among the strongest of the teams.

NOVA guard Chris Jones goes up for a short shot near the basket versus Lord Fairfax CC in the January 14 game at Annandale. Photo by: Kama Storie

Come on. Is that beverage worth it?

Choose a designated driver — one that will actually abstain from drinking, not one who just promises to limit drinking to one or two beers.

And if you’re hosting a party, be prepared to let some people stay over if they are too impaired. Let’s put aside the possibility of being sued if you let someone drive drunk from your place and they cause a collision. How would you feel if you made everyone go home only to get a call at work the next day telling you that one of them had died?

Regret like that doesn’t go away for a long time, if ever.

Have the phone numbers of at least two taxi services programmed into your phone and money for a ride. And as tempting as it might be to bet that money on your favorite team, don’t.

If you’re the host, post the numbers to several cab companies on your fridge for guests to use. I’ll make it easy for you. Here’s a list of cab companies in the Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., area:

Yellow Cab of Prince William County (main number): 703-491-2222
Yellow Cab of Prince William County – Stafford Area: 540-659-1200
Yellow Cab of Prince William County – Quantico Area: 703-640-6464
Manassas Cab Company: 703-257-0222
Red Top Cab Company in Arlington: 703-522-3333
Loudoun Yellow Cab: 703-437-9100
Alexandria Yellow Cab: 703-549-2500
Fairfax Yellow Cab: 703-534-1111
Yellow Cab of D.C.: 202-TAXICAB

Print this list and cut it out now… while you’re still sober. Put it in your wallet or tape it to your dashboard as a reminder.

Enjoy the game. Eat until your stomach hurts. Talk sports with your mouth full. Scream at the over-priced big screen HDTV. Help clean up (you know you should). And be safe, not stupid.

– KJ Mushung

As tempting as it'd be to drive one of these after a Super Bowl party, we don't recommend it... at least, not if you've been drinking. That'd be a waste of one seriously fine vehicle. Photo by: Arch Scurlock